Categories
Ten seats to watch at the next general election – politicalbetting.com
Ten seats to watch at the next general election – politicalbetting.com
It’s never too soon to think about the next election and how that might look in detail. Let’s have a look at some of the individual constituencies that will tell the story of the night.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
BUT shouldn't the PM change seats, and run in Wycombe? Name alone suggests that it's his natural turf!
AND what about the brand, new seat of . . . wait for it . . . West Wokeshire West?
I note that both County Durham & West Virginia are all-but-certain to lose representation in the national legislature.
In the Mountain State, congressional districts are shrinking from three to two (there were six in the 1950s, the height of the coal boom) with the current central district almost certain to be split between existing northern & southern seats. Both of which should remain virtually-sure to elect Republicans for rest of the reeling '20s.
In County Durham, will reduction and consequent (or otherwise) boundary changes tend to help or hurt Labour and Conservative prospects, and do any others have a chance? Generally where seats are totally or partially removed, with respect to incumbents it's usually a case of the weakest to the wall.
Colchester looks a bit like my seat of Woking in that the Tories look beatable, but the challenger isn’t strong enough to hoover up most of the non-Tory votes. Perhaps that will be different in such seats in 2024.
It’s also interesting to wonder if Tories might win a few more seats in the red wall next time even if they suffer a net loss overall. Labour just held on to Normanton, Castleford and Pontefract (Yvette Cooper’s seat) last time. I think that and Chesterfield might be possible gains for the Tories.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/uk-politics/1954441/snps-neale-hanvey-sacked-after-backing-campaign-to-sue-aberdeen-mp-kirsty-blackman/
Putting real money and effort into saving seats like this - the next regional dominoes after Grimsby and Scunthorpe in the retreat of the Labour vote - demonstrates the mountain the party has next time. Places where you used to weigh the vote for the Labour candidate, whoever the candidate, now need shoring up. And I don't see Starmer being any help there in filling sandbags. Not against Boris in a JCB, chasing down those 8,294 Brexit Party voters, with his message that he delivered Brexit. The Brexit that "smarmy Starmer" tried so hard to block at every turn.
Coventry and Wolverhampton are also places were Labour is going to have to spend a huge amount of effort, just to stand still. And this against a Government being smart in trying to prise them into the blue column by moving jobs there. Coventry's turn next.....
"The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will have a new home in Wolverhampton, with 500 posts including senior civil servants moving to the West Midlands by 2025.
It will be the first ever ministerial office outside of Westminster and is part of the Places for Growth programme, which aims to shift away from the London-centric approach to government."
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/politics/2021/02/20/wolverhampton-chosen-for-new-government-department-headquarters/#:~:text=New government headquarters will be,servant roles out of London.&text=The Ministry of Housing, Communities,the West Midlands by 2025.
Wolverhampton SE - Labour majority in 2017 8,514 --> Labour majority 1,235 in 2019
Wolverhampton NE - Labour majority in 2017 4,587 --> Con majority 4,080 in 2019
Wolverhampton SW - Labour majority in 2017 2,185 --> Con majority 1,661 in 2019
Coventry NE - Labour majority in 2017 15,580 --> Labour majority 7,692 in 2019
Coventry NW - Labour majority in 2017 8,580 --> Labour majority 208 in 2019
Coventry S - Labour majority in 2017 7,947 --> Labour majority 401 in 2019
I see that The Bow Group are agitating about Carrie's role: https://news.sky.com/story/carrie-symonds-role-in-governing-the-uk-should-be-investigated-tory-think-tank-says-12224401
The deeper issue for them is of course nothing to do with accountability. It's to do with the shunning of the hard right Brexiteers.
Carrie's arrival into the heart of the Government is one of the reasons I find myself more supportive of Boris. Since Cummings & Cain were shown the door, No 10 has moved noticeably more centrist and less abrasive. The War on Whitehall has ceased and a number of appointments signal the return of what I consider to be the truer Boris: the one who won an essentially Labour capital city for the Conservatives.
It bodes well. If he can continue to please the Labour heartlands on Brexit, re-open Britain thanks to our stunning vaccine success, and claim the centre ground with socially soft libertarian policies then Labour will remain lost and Boris will probably win a landslide.
Not too surprised my seat is on the list. I hope the Conservatives have a new leader come election time.
I think he will but I accept that it's a long way out.
Even if we expand it to the old county boundaries Labour hold just one seat - Walsall South.
In Gloucestershire it’s hardly less disastrous. In 2005 Labour held Gloucester, Stroud, Kingswood and had just lost the Forest of Dean by a tight margin, while the Liberal Democrats held Northavon and Cheltenham. Now the Liberal Democrats are in contention in Cheltenham and Labour in Stroud, but every single other seat in Gloucestershire is solidly Tory.
I think Labour are stuffed.
https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1363385716932288512?s=20
Starmer is boring. I don't want a bank manager prime minister.
His policies offer nothing radically different from Boris. This is also why I suggest that if Boris continues the left tack and seizes the centre ground, whilst keeping his new Brexit core happy, then Labour are stuffed.
Governments get themselves oppositions. Over time they upset people, for one reason or another.
The Falkland's War obscured this for a while. So did Brexit.
And I don't know if the opposition will come from Labour, Reform, the Greens, the LibDems or whoever.
But it will come from somewhere.
Local election bases will erode. By-elections will be lost. And then suddenly, someone else will be in Number 10.
In 2024? On the balance of probabilities, I'd say "no".
But it will happen.
Pendulums are like that.
Can you see remainer Sir Keir Starmer winning them back? I can't.
Need a bit more data yet.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mandarin-leslie-evans-faces-sack-over-salmond-debacle-q3vl2pdh0
He seems to be wearing around the edges a little now, less like a mascara'd up Thunderbirds puppet, more like a decent-sounding bloke who has had a sound pandemic.
Burnham leading Labour into the next election would cause Boris more sleepless nights than Starmer. Although I suspect Boris would work better with Burnham in delivering stuff for the North. They'd both look good.
Not sure how that shakes up politics materially in Labour's favour, but they would still look credible as a force. Which would have to be an improvement on what they've had - and what they've got.
The Conservatives have been in power in one form or other since 2010. That's a long time and normally your 'nature reboot' meme would be taking effect.
But those old rules, I suggest, don't apply right now. Two seismic events have effectively reset the clock. One is Brexit. The other is Covid. We don't yet know how the latter will play out mid-term in the polling but so far Boris hasn't taken a hit. If anything the opposite.
So I'd suggest we forget the fact that the tories have been in Downing St for 12 years and reset the data to 0. Or, 1, since it's a year now.
In many ways I'm beginning to see Boris Johnson as a Tony Blair. Charismatic. Honey-tongued. Successful. Flawed.
Despite what was previously said on here, Boris Johnson IS a vote winner.
Tony Blair showed that it's perfectly possible to remain in power without an opposition of any meaningful sort for a decade: William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard offered precisely nothing to the electorate for a whole decade. Which is basically what I sadly now feel about Keir Starmer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9282677/IAN-BIRRELL-Row-erupts-cover-Chinas-Covid-death-toll.html
Now, when will that be? I couldn't guess.
But this is a moment when Boris should be basking in triumph: the UK is leading the world* in its vaccine roll-out; Brexit has been achieved, and without any obvious major discomfort (indeed, CV19 has made the bloc look very poor indeed); the opposition is weak and divided.
Maybe the next crisis will work out as well for Boris. Maybe it won't. Maybe the opposition will fail to coalesce. And maybe it won't. And maybe the government will simply get tired and mired in scandals.
If I were to bet, I'd say that 2024 would see the Conservatives comfortably re-elected, perhaps with a majority of 40-45, but on a substantially reduced vote share.
But, I could be completely wrong.
* So long as the world excludes some smaller countries
But we don't have a history of one party rule in the UK.
Not enough.
Of course China's numbers are crazy low. They moved 300m people around the country for New Year with a highly contagious disease on the loose. But the number of dead is what the Party says it is.
The only one I can think of is Angus Robertson, or possibly Ruth Davidson.
Also, we're not Japan. And let's hope we don't become like them. Because it's really unhealthy for democracy when the fighting isn't for the affections of the electorate, but for the support of the party members.
Matt Hancock broke the law.
Meanwhile...
https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1363398574327881729
But you know what? Nobody thought much of Paddy Ashdown until the Gulf War. There will be another crisis, or issue, and someone will shine through.
Can't tell you who yet, but someone will.
Indeed, the interesting question is to look at the non-Conservative politicians; who's the Tony Blair, hidden away, winning a seat when his party was down at heel?
Maybe political choice only serves democracy when your nation is flailing around trying to find a direction?
The only one I can think of is unemployment, but to make that your lodestar, you have to ignore the fact that Italy has done notably better on employment as a percent of population.
Why did all the vibrant Cities vote solidly to Remain? It seems to cut across traditional Party lines. Maybe these 'Red Wall' seats are the wrong way of dividing the country. Scotland is pretty solidly anti Brexit and is likely to leave the UK. Similarly N.Ireland who will certainly thrive as part of a united ireland.
There is a good chance and an irony that when the negative effects of Brexit finally hit us it's going to be the Brexit voting areas that are going to be hit the hardest. The voters in those areas might even ask themselves where their country has gone!
But the interesting question is who will they blame? Those who led them down this back alley or they themselves who voted for it? Unlikely to be themselves but I'd be very surprised if Johnson and his henchmen escape unscathed
Like Birmingham - miles and miles of roadside development. Even London seems more compact when driving in, at least from the North.
Labour doesn't suffer the calamity of Corbyn, but the Conservatives also have far less turbulence to deal with. Against that, UKIP are likely still riding high in the polls.
You don't suddenly stop paying someone's pension unless they aren't around to need it.
It will take some years for this country to get over its political xenophobia.
Living in the purple wall, I'd say that I have yet to see any Boris policies that will really tip the balance.
We are seeing a bit of investment (and lots of whinging about it) but I have yet to see anything that will be noticed in the pocketbook by every constituent.
That doesn't strike me as "pretty solidly anti-Brexit".
If it was only 20% rather than just under 40% - yes. However, it wasn't.
Outside of us obsessives, Brexit is not desired for the sake of Brexit. It is desired because of the prospect of tangible benefits.
Right now, with the EU having bugled vaccines worse than Bungle, things look good.
But in the medium term, relativity to other countries doesn't win many votes. Am I better off than I was one, three and five years ago? Am I more optimistic?
We don't know the answer to those questions yet.
There are at least three massive assumptions in your message.
1. "Scotland is likely to leave the UK"
Whilst I think this is a possibility, to describe it as "likely" is presumptuous. It will take a lot of legal and constitutional wrangling even to get to the point of a second independence vote. Even if they do reach that point there is absolutely no guarantee that Scotland would vote for independence. At the moment it's too close to call and the further away from Brexit we get, the less likely I find the idea.
2. Your depiction of "miserable Northern and Eastern towns" as "without imagination and talent" has, of course, a grain of truth to it but it's pretty supercilious. It's not exactly the language of someone who understands and wants to win back those who surged to Boris.
3. "When the negative effects of Brexit finally hit us."
Highly presumptuous. I expect you thought they would have already hit us and you are now moving the goalposts to suit your aspirations. For all the kerfuffles about oysters, and some supply problems, Brexit has not yet been anything like the disaster imagined. Indeed, had we been tied to the EMA we would have been part of the EU's disastrous vaccine scandal. That is a point that will be hammered home time and time again by Boris and chums. No wonder Keir Starmer went puce in the House of Commons when this was levelled at him. It may take many years for remain to regain the ground they lost. The fact is that on the single most important policy decision since the Second World War, the EU failed its European citizens. Except Britain of course. Free from the shackles, the UK rolled out probably the most successful vaccine programme in the world, literally life saving and life changing.
It's time to stop even mentioning Brexit. (Worth noting, of course, that even Starmer is reconciled to this and supported the government's legislation on this matter.)
https://twitter.com/HRwritesnews/status/1363269833677287427?s=20
It suits political discourse to depict the Purple wall as Leaverstan and Scotland as Romania, but the reality is far more complex and interesting.
A large part of the reason that small towns, (whether post industrial North or seaside) voted Brexit is age profile. If the voting youngsters have moved to the metropolises, then the residue are older. That is why the areas of the country with shrinking populations were most Brexity. Not so much immigrants taking jobs, as no decent jobs to be had.
Dr. Foxy, fanciful to imagine the right are whipping up, rather than reacting to, a culture war. It isn't the right that thinks whiteness is a problem or that people should indulge in cultish symbolism like kneeling to show they're not guilty of wrongthink.
I'm interested - do you find extensive political xenophobia amongst your work colleagues and patients?
Leicestershire voted to leave EU, though Leicester itself voted marginally in favour.
Not so much amongst work colleagues though, as most of my colleagues are foreign born.
Had Labour tacked to Corbyn's and Labour Left's historic antipathy to the centralised EU, and sided with Brexit, they may very well have held on to their Red Wall. They'd have lost sizeable chunks of the Metropolitan remain vote but to whom? The LibDems probably.
Anyway, the point is that as you seem to be in a generally very sanguine long-view reflective mood this morning the same might be applied to Sir Keir. I don't think Starmer will be entirely trusted by Labour Brexit voters on this. So whilst it's easy for him to say he's over it, I'm not sure they will be so ready to rush back into Labour's fold.
I'm glad to say! I still hope, that even at my advanced age, I'll see us Rejoin, or at least have a much closer relationship than our Prime Minster seems to want.
At the moment I think he'll have his place in the history books, but alongside people like Chamberlain and Lord North.
Sturgeon has to bear a lot of responsibility for both of them of course. Their over eagerness to please did not come out of nowhere.
...
And the other question is how much of the successful party's clothes they have to nick to become successful themselves. Blair was the master at that, of course. He accepted almost all of the Conservative reforms since 1979 economically, though he was much more liberal socially. Tony Blair PM well deserves the anagram I'm Tory Plan B.
I'm getting mine next week.
Thank god we left the EU.
The government might need to be careful about moving a lot of metropolitan elite types into Midlands and northern towns. If civil servants and their families take their London mores with them, the resulting regeneration might not be was the left behind were hoping for.
To an extent seats are won and lost by the quality of local targeting, but the overall picture counts for more. And Labour's problem there is that its support base who are prepared to turn out and vote is over concentrated in areas that are too cool to vote Tory, BAME, very young, ultra urban and overlap strongly with remain. This disguises the extent to which they have lost their traditional base.
For Labour to lose ordinary people in unfashionable areas is to lose your USP.
People may imagine that all the population growth and demographic change will be strongly helpful to Labour. They are, I think, wrong.
The cultural shift required to speak to the areas they have lost would be extremely painful to the woke, guardian, anti-Brit, socially anarchist bit of Labour.
For example: In the politically active, woke, fashionable world to say 'All Lives Matter' is an ultra right, politically charged, semi fascist sentiment. In the world Labour needs a couple of million votes from it is a statement of restrained common sense.
Reflect for a minute on Laura Pidcock losing her seat, and how she would have to change to win it back. It's a slog.
One is an individual choice in one's own home, the other is a third party trying to insist on the behaviour of other people.
That's exactly it. Labour has lost its USP.
It's currently reduced to grandstanding, such as today announcing that all schools should go back on March 8th when we already 99% know that's already been decided by the Gov't.
Labour have no existential meaning.
There's nothing there. No USP.
Boris will need other reasons for those red wall seats to remain blue. The economic position of the government is both an asset and a liability here. On the one hand the deficit ought to make large scale programs in the north difficult. On the other Boris will argue (possibly correctly) that the economy needs a boost to get out of recession after Covid. My guess is that he will spend, spend, spend. Northern voters used to be taken for granted by Labour and ignored by the Tories may well like it.
There was an interesting piece of work a month or so back that showed opinion in backwater towns. People didn't want incomers, even if it led to economic development.
https://twitter.com/Demos/status/1357741328235442178?s=19
https://twitter.com/GrandPrixDiary/status/1363402626310819840
I'd say 60/40 fits landslide/overwhelming/pretty solid
Just because it's time to stop mentioning Brexit does not mean voters will forget. They've relaxed now because remainers were kicked into touch, but only after a long game with a parliament that tried to thwart the will of the people at every turn and with every trick in the book.
But it takes a generation for voters to regain trust after something that seismic. Look at Black Wednesday: it was a generation before the tories were trusted again on the economy.
It will be the same on Brexit. It will be a generation before Labour are trusted again.
And that, my friends, is why it will be a very, very, long time before you see another British Labour Prime Minister.
Have a good day
https://www.facebook.com/NickPalmerNottingham/posts/10159148987079592
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24513004
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/feb/03/former-director-public-prosecutions-victims-law-keir-starmer
https://www.lag.org.uk/article/202698/-lsquo-victims-law-rsquo--will-change-face-of-criminal-justice--says-starmer
Starmer chaired the Labour party's victims taskforce and was instrumental in the policy shift that came into play.
I know the Carl Beech story inside out and he is unlikely to have got away with it without the policy shift, which was a reaction of course to the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Reactive policy decisions are rarely good ones and Keir Starmer got this badly wrong. As he did with Labour on the EU.
G'day to y'all.
xx
But many of the jobs and lifestyles that The Young want don't make sense in the classic small town. They happen in Leeds and Manchester for sure, maybe in Huddersfield if you look hard enough. But not in Dewsbury, let alone Heckmondwicke.
It's a wicked problem, and I don't think anyone has a good answer to it.
The point is that those in the care homes are far, far more likely to die if they get infected before the vaccination has an effect. If you want to reduce the number of cases vaccinate the young. If you want to reduce death and serious illness vaccinate the old. Simples.
Primary 1 2 3 back tomorrow.
Sigh.